be quiet! Dark Power 12 850 W

[kde]

That’s not your power supply—it’s other system components, including any LEDs remaining on. The power supply consumes a fraction of 1 Watt when in standby mode:

Yes, the PSU itself consumes less than a watt. I assume that MB consumes about 3 watts and that's 3 - 4 watts in sum. That's what my power meter shows. It's completely OK. But 4 W at 230 V is just 4/230 = 0.017 A. That's active current. And my power meter shows about 0.17 A, so the remaining current is 0.17 - 0.017 = 0.153 A and that's reactive current. I assume that it goes through the X-caps that are part of the input PSU filter. So I wonder which capacity they have.

But now I've noticed the following line in the table at the page you linked: Test #3, 5VSB@0.55A = 3.588W input power with 0.091 PF. 3.6 W is very close to my case. But since power factor is 0.091, the current that PSU consumes is much more, it's (3.6/0.091)/230 = 0.172 A! And that's very close to my measurements.

Probably that's the reason why this PSU is marked as "Vampire power".

 

[VeqIR]

That would probably be something connected to a USB port and using power or motherboard LEDs. Do you have a USB hub plugged in or a USB device that might be using power? Vampire power is something every PSU tested by Aris is checked for. It’s not a label for a PSU.

 

[kde]

No, I do not have anything connected to the PC (I specially disconnected everything for testing). And 3-4 W of active power confirms this.

Vampire power is something every PSU tested by Aris is checked for. It’s not a label for a PSU.

I meant "Increased vampire power with 230 V" from the cons at the "Value and Conclusion" page. And it it marked "with 230 V", i.e. the standby current is lower with 110 V. It points to the X-caps one more time - the lower mains voltage is the lower reactive current flows through the capacitors.

Let's take for comparison Seasonic Connect 750 W. At the same test (5VSB@0.550 A) it has PF 0.160, i.e. its current will be (3.7/0.16)/230 = 0.1 A.

I just tried to measure my PSU input capacitance (if we do it at quite low frequency, the inductors in the transient filter don't interfere) and it is 2.17 uF. Using the calculator here I got that it's 1467 Ohm @ 50 Hz. And that produces 230/1467 = 0.157 A of reactive current. Very close to my previous post.

So, probably BQ's PSU produces more EMI (maybe due to the active input rectifier?), so they had to use X-caps of increased capacity to filter them out.

 

[VeqIR]

In most cases, inrush currents are way lower with 115V input. As for the 750W unit, sure I will do something. Probably at TPU again

Still hoping for the 750W review

 

[Kadala]

Hi everybody, a new member here, I am Dutch, obviously living in Europe ;-)

I registered because I wanted to express my gratitude and admiration for the maker of the Be Quiet Dark Power 12 (850 Watts) review which is incredible in it's depth and width of testing and reviewing. I have been looking for reviews before and after purchasing the 1000 Watts version of the dark Power 12 on Amazon as a "warehouse deal" for about 212 euros which, considering the time we are in right now, was a very good deal and for the life of me I have not been able to find a reason for this having been a so called "warehouse deal". The thing is unblemished, works perfectly fine, maybe the sole reason was that the previous buyer objected to it being delivered with all the shipping labels having been put directly on the carton box. Granted, a very annoying habit of companies like Amazon these days although it could be said that it is mindful of the environment as it saves on an extra, somewhat superfluous, generic carton box around it. I used to care about that (the original packaging) too, when I was younger, but as you get older there comes a point where you loose interest in such trivial concerns, but I digress.

So, even though I found this review by "Cramaris" after having already bought the 1000 Watts version, I still thoroughly enjoy reading up on what others, some of whom are way more knowledgeable than I am, have to say about the choice I made. The pros and cons. And some things I didn't know about, are actually quite interesting. So please accept my appreciation for your efforts and the way you did it.

And may I echo @VeqIR's request that I too would be very interested to hear whether there are still some interesting little differences in both design and functioning of the 1000 Watts version and the 750 Watts version of the Dark Power 12 psu ?

Wishing you all a very nice day and I'll be going over all the other reviews here as well. There are too many superficial reviews out there and that is why I came here. Please, carry on !

 

[Dave65]

Agreed, but as I have stated. Stupid sheeple will buy it. If this was a 1200watt PSU then yes this would be a buy, but in this day an age corporations SELL you less for more money. They can get away with it because are enough people who don't know (or frankly don't care) about costs to run a business then these prices are going to stay.

The world of the Credit Card. It's a damn shame really!